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IQ

By:
Joe Ide

Narrated by:
Sullivan Jones

Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
5,424

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
5,066

Story

4 out of 5 stars
5,047

A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores. East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch. They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence.

IQ way better than OK

Beyond cool.....

Incredible voices read by an ideal narrator. As street as they come. Full of double skips and hops with a drummer’s timing. Strap on and go, Playah.

American War

A Novel

By:
Omar El Akkad

Narrated by:
Dion Graham

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
1,532

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,423

Story

4 out of 5 stars
1,418

Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.

Best listen in years

Wow.

Brilliant work. You can taste the rage and bile of the South and of all those who are on the losing end of political force.

2 of 4 people found this review helpful

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

By:
Ransom Riggs

Narrated by:
Jesse Bernstein

Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
15,304

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
13,792

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
13,803

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets 16-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

It might be better to actually read this.

Great idea, not so great reader

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

2 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-24-17

I was surprised to find that a book that had chalked up a 4+ stars review could be so difficult to listen to. The narrator does a great job portraying the whiny, illogical, strike-out-at-everything frustrated teen at the center of this book--so much so that I almost couldn't continue to listen. But everyone else just sounds wrong to my ear. One of the great pleasures of audiobooks, if not their signal attraction, comes from the voices that bring the text to life. If the voices, as here, don't fit or don't work or are just wrong, the story is lost.

The Trespasser

A Novel

By:
Tana French

Narrated by:
Hilda Fay

Length: 20 hrs and 6 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
7,688

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
7,083

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
7,046

Being on the murder squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she's there. The rest of her working life is a stream of thankless cases, vicious pranks, and harassment. Antoinette is savagely tough, but she's getting close to the breaking point. Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers' quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed to a shine, and dead in her catalogue-perfect living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner.

5 out of 5 stars

A literary mystery

Not up to her usual.

Overall

3 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

3 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-07-16

Tana French has done better. A rather predictable plot with one of the more tedious female detective narrators, in whose head you get to spend hours being sprayed with her insecure rage and paranoia. Not my cuppa. Narrator had a fine Irish voice.

Wolf Hall

By:
Hilary Mantel

Narrated by:
Simon Slater

Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
3,837

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,913

Story

4 out of 5 stars
2,919

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn.

5 out of 5 stars

Divorced, beheaded, died...

Spectacular text and reading

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-08-16

This is the finest historical I've read. Literate, flowing, and artful, it views an old story through new eyes, dancing from perspective to memory to new perspective. And for those, like me, who grew up thinking Thomas Moore was the saintly character of "A Man For All Seasons," a long overdue correction. Thomas Cromwell must have been something.

Simon Slater is masterful and I look forward to more volumes in his voice.

Slow Bullets

By:
Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by:
Susan Duerden

Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins

Unabridged

Overall

3.5 out of 5 stars
152

Performance

3.5 out of 5 stars
141

Story

4 out of 5 stars
138

A vast conflict, one that has encompassed hundreds of worlds and solar systems, appears to be finally at an end. A conscripted soldier is beginning to consider her life after the war and the family she has left behind. But for Scur - and for humanity - peace is not to be.

A great story ruined by narration.

Fingernails on a Blackboard

Overall

1 out of 5 stars

Performance

1 out of 5 stars

Story

1 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-29-16

The audible narrator has a repetitious technique with almost every sentence sounding like any other.. I find this unlistenable and gave up about 15 minutes in. I can't really comment on the story, though I generally very much enjoy Reynolds' work. Too bad I can't abide this narration.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Fellside

By:
M. R. Carey

Narrated by:
Finty Williams

Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
2,309

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,137

Story

4 out of 5 stars
2,133

Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.

4 out of 5 stars

Almost Great

Amazing work

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-23-16

I have always had trouble distinguishing whether my appreciation of a given audiobook's merit comes from the writing or the reading. This is especially true in the presence of a strong narrator. Sometimes, though, and rarely, I happen upon a combination like M.R. Carey and Finty Williams and then the question becomes moot. Both are so strong that together they produce works of immense depth and beauty. In many respects, Fellside is different from The Girl with all the Gifts, but no less spectacular in it's texture, originality and wonder. Certainly, there are thematic similarities,e.g.,both stories center on initially powerless girls/women who blossom within implacable systems. But otherwise each is unique and something completely new. I believe that M.R. Carey has something unique and special to say, about the life, love, and horror that lurks about us all.

8 of 11 people found this review helpful

The Abyss Beyond Dreams

Chronicle of the Fallers, Book 1

By:
Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by:
John Lee

Length: 22 hrs and 28 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
3,240

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,965

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,964

The year is 3326. Nigel Sheldon, one of the founders of the Commonwealth, receives a visit from the Raiel - self-appointed guardians of the Void, the enigmatic construct at the core of the galaxy that threatens the existence of all that lives. The Raiel convince Nigel to participate in a desperate scheme to infiltrate the Void. Once inside, Nigel discovers that humans are not the only life-forms to have been sucked into the Void. The humans trapped there are afflicted by an alien species of biological mimics.

Slick Space Opera

An intricate, deeply imagined story narrated by the inimitable John Lee. Fans of Lee's narrations of Alistair Reynolds' novels will feel right at home here. Looking forward to Part II.

0 of 10 people found this review helpful

The Girl with All the Gifts

By:
M. R. Carey

Narrated by:
Finty Williams

Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
34,056

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
31,460

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
31,463

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius". Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Hours in, restarted so husband could listen too!

A lsurprising, literate take on an undead genre.

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 12-14-14

First, a disclaimer: I adore Ms. Williams' voice, just as I did her mother's. That said, I have always had trouble distinguishing the influences of the text and those of the narrator in great audiobooks, and that is the case here. Ms. Williams reading is so precise, her diction so engaging, and her timing so exact that she carried me along with her as if riding some stream, through lazy drifts and breakneck cataracts. But it is the writer, not the reader who crafts the text though which that stream runs, and Carey, or whatever his real name is, can flat out write. In a real sense, he too, like his Melanie, has all the gifts, and I delighted he shares them with us in this tale. I look forward to his next book and Ms. Williams' next adult effort.

Bleeding Edge

By:
Thomas Pynchon

Narrated by:
Jeannie Berlin

Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins

Unabridged

Overall

3.5 out of 5 stars
202

Performance

2.5 out of 5 stars
189

Story

4 out of 5 stars
176

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics - carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people's bank accounts - without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom - two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst - till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm....

Genuinely unlistenable

Plotz! plotz! Kvetsh! Try giving it a chance, nu?

Overall

4 out of 5 stars

Performance

4 out of 5 stars

Story

4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-04-13

I admit that I had much the same negative reaction when I started Bleeding Edge. But over time, Ms. Berlin's reading has come to charm me. Not only does she embody the sound and style of New York Jewish protagonist to a T, but in a way her bumpy reading reflects the uncertainty and disorder of her character as she stumbles from one clue to another on the journey Pynchon has laid before her. I now find Ms. Berlin's reading to be refreshing. I can see why Pynchon blessed the reading, and I find myself agreeing with him.